David Lange dies at 63

Former prime minister David Lange, who has died at the age of 63, was a colossus of New Zealand politics.

David Russell Lange, prime minister for five tumultuous years from 1984, died at 10pm yesterday.

In a brief statement, Lange's family said he had died from the complications of renal failure with his close family by his side.

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His family thanked the staff of Auckland's Middlemore Hospital and especially ward 1 for their care and support.

Lange's wit, debating skills and remarkable influence internationally and within the Labour Party were the hallmarks of his career.

Born in Auckland, the eldest of four children and the son of a doctor, Lange's schooling was a largely working class one at Otahuhu College.

From an early age Lange's skills were obvious in the classroom, as opposed to the sports field, and from school he headed to Auckland University's law school.

He graduated with a law degree and was admitted to the Supreme Court as a barrister and solicitor in 1966.

In 1967, Lange embarked on a world trip, eventually arriving in London, where he met Englishwoman Naomi Crampton through a Methodist church group they attended.

The pair were married and in 1968 returned to New Zealand and Kaikohe for him to practise law. They later had three children.

Lange settled in Auckland after completing a Master of Laws with first class honours at Auckland University.

He built a reputation as a poor man's lawyer who worked for people who could not afford to pay or who had been denied legal representation.

In his first foray seeking political office, Lange stood on the Labour ticket for Auckland City Council in 1974. He polled well, but did not gain a seat.

A year later, he stood for Labour in the safe National seat of Hobson in the general election. Again he was defeated.

When Mangere MP Colin Moyle resigned in 1977, after a run in with prime minister Sir Robert Muldoon, Lange gained Labour's nomination for the secure seat from 16 other candidates.

He remained MP of the area for almost two decades, until retiring from politics in 1996.

His rise to the top of the Labour Party was meteoric.

Within two years of entering parliament, Lange replaced Bob Tizard as Labour's deputy leader. But his two-vote win caused bitter divisions within the party.

With the backing of some of his party's younger MPs - including later foes Mike Moore and Roger Douglas - Lange was being touted as the party's future, ahead of the old guard behind party leader Bill Rowling.

The Lange camp moved on Rowling in 1980, but failed by one vote to oust the leader.

Lange later offered to resign as deputy, but was persuaded not to by colleagues.

The party's leadership debate did not fade away and in the wake of the 1981 general election loss, Lange was seen as the only figure within the Labour caucus able to take on the might of Muldoon.

Early in 1983, when it became apparent he would not be re-elected leader, Rowling stood down and Lange took over.

Despite his strength as an orator, Lange was handicapped in politics - especially through the increasing influence of television - by his physical appearance.

His large physique - he weighed almost 200 kg - unfashionable haircut and ill-fitting suits gave him a less than statesman-like look.

His response was dramatic.

In 1982, he had his stomach stapled to reduce the amount he could eat, threw off his thick dark-rimmed spectacles, paraded a new line in suits and got a hair cut. Media experts trained him on how to perform on television.

Eighteen months after assuming the Labour leadership, armed with his new image and aged just 41, Lange led Labour to victory in the 1984 snap election, ousting the National Party and Muldoon, to become New Zealand's youngest prime minister last century.

Lange later described the days surrounding the election, in the midst of an economic crisis that threatened to cripple the country, as the time he was most proud of in his career.

"Holding the government together before we were sworn in - at a time of calculated crisis with a former prime minister having a licence to ringbark us and scattering termites all around our wooden legs - was a very difficult time indeed.

"That'll be written up as the time of greatest management ability, keeping one's head."

Within a year, Lange had the world stage at his feet. Adopting Labour's anti-nuclear stand as his own, Lange travelled to the US and UK to explain the policy.

His contribution to the Oxford University Union debate - where he successfully argued, against US moral majority leader Jerry Falwell, that nuclear weapons were morally indefensible - earned him an international reputation for his oratory skills.

Just a few months later Lange was again espousing the perils of nuclear weapons against world powers, after French agents bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour before it could travel to Mururoa to protest at French nuclear testing.

During his term as prime minister, Lange was not immune to criticism from his own party.

On gaining office in 1984, and with Roger Douglas as finance minister, Labour embarked on a series of radical economic reforms, the deregulatory policies alienating many of Labour's traditional supporters.

As blue collar workers and public servants alike lost their jobs, Labour faced the ire of unions and, after winning the 1987 election, Lange began to lose faith in key aspects of "Rogernomics".

Early in 1988, while Douglas was overseas, Lange shelved Labour's new flat tax plans, for the first time blowing open to the public the policy rift between him and Douglas.

Lange unsuccessfully sought to have Douglas ousted from cabinet in August, then called for a breather from Rogernomics.

In November, Richard Prebble, state owned enterprise minister and right hand man to Douglas, was sacked from cabinet.

A month later, Douglas followed and the next week Lange defeated Douglas in a challenge for the leadership.

But by now, caucus loyalties were irrevocably split.

After narrowly surviving a vote of no confidence in mid-1989, Lange was forced to watch his caucus defy his wishes and return Douglas to cabinet.

His response was to dramatically announce he was standing down as party leader and prime minister.

"I thank you for five magnificent, tumultuous, tempestuous, great years.

"Absolutely nothing could replace them," he said during his resignation speech in parliament.

During his time in government he had been foreign affairs minister (1984-87), education minister (1987-89) and the architect of the Tomorrow's Schools program, and attorney general, minister in charge of the Serious Fraud Office and minister of state (all 1989-1990).

Lange's resignation as prime minister did not see him disappear from the public eye, either while in government or during his six years in opposition after 1990.

It was his wife who first made sure the public would not forget her husband.

In a phone call to a newspaper, Naomi Lange told the nation how her marriage had ended after 21 years because of Lange's liaison with his speechwriter Margaret Pope.

Pope's critical influence on Lange had earlier centred on his foreign affairs and anti-nuclear speeches, when her advice was understood to have often conflicted with foreign affairs officials' suggestions that Lange's stance be moderated.

Having been made a Companion of Honour in 1990, after turning down a knighthood, Lange remained powerful within the opposition Labour Party.

Just before the 1993 general election, Lange urged the party to rethink its direction and to focus on appealing to the poor.

In an implicit criticism of then leader Mike Moore, he said: "The trouble with any party which puts itself in the middle and tries to be all things to all people is that it ends up standing for nothing."

After a few remarks further in support of a progressive tax system, Lange had torpedoed Moore and his party's chances of assuming power a couple of weeks out from the election.

But Lange's influence extended past the election. He became a key supporter of Labour deputy leader Helen Clark in her successful coup to oust Moore.

Lange continued to speak out on policy and personality issues when he wanted to, at times undermining Clark and most times irritating his colleagues.

In the end, his announcement in 1995 that he would retire from politics at the 1996 general election was greeted with some relief within the Labour caucus.

Late in 1995 he underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation, and in 1996, at the age of 53, his fourth child was born - the first with Pope, whom he had married in 1992.

His health continued to falter. In 2001 he had a coronary artery bypass operation and in August 2002 he was given chemotherapy for the rare blood disease, amyloidosis.

But his rehabilitation as a Labour statesman was completed when appointed to the Order of New Zealand - the country's highest honour - in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours.

A "gratified" Lange said: "It's a very much bolder act for a Labour-led government to give it to me because, in one respect, the government of Helen Clark has had to live down the excesses of change which '84 to '89 brought."

He and Douglas also made their peace in July 2004 after barely talking to each other for years, when Douglas visited his frail former leader at home and prepared for a reunion with other former ministerial colleagues to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their election victory.

In July, Lange was made an honorary member of the Indian community - the first time the New Zealand Indian community had conferred the honour on anyone of non-Indian descent.

Lange was admitted to hospital on July 15 after complications with his diabetes.

Three weeks later, on August 2, he had his right leg amputated below the knee.

He celebrated his 63rd birthday two days later, on August 4, in hospital, but in a fair condition, a family spokesperson said.